Machine Applique Trivet

I made this pretty trivet to give to a friend of ours for Christmas. Fran works with Jesse, and she and her husband have become good friends of the family. A couple of months ago they came over and we made pierogi and borscht together, so the eastern-european flair of this design reminded me of her.

I have watched youtube videos about machine appliqué for years…since well before I had a machine even remotely capable of doing the job. I had never tried it, though, until a few weeks ago. This particular project was actually offered as one of the free monthly classes that came with the purchase of my sewing machine. Normally I treat these as technique classes, and I don’t always finish the projects that we start. But I really liked this design, and I also made a New Year’s Resolution (a little early) to finish every project I start this year.

The design is Dresden Appliqué from OESD. There are 10 different designs, which you can buy as a set or individually. Each one is a 5.5 inch square with a different background pattern and 3 matching “flower petals.” I purchased designs 7 and 8, and used my Bernina Software 7 to combine them so that the flower petal patterns alternated and the backgrounds all matched. So I ended up with 2 separate files (petal designs 7/8/7 and 8/7/8), and stitched each out twice. The final block with binding is about 12 inches square.

I quilted it with Insul-Bright so that it could be used as a trivet, and used my 71 foot to do the binding. I’m still a novice at this method of binding, and am definitely going to need more practice at it, but overall I was happy with the result.